The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime would have four
slabs and it is likely to be unveiled within 15 days, chairman of empowered
committee of state finance ministers Asim Dasgupta said on Sunday.
“It (GST) will have four slabs. I hope the rates will be
released in the next 15 days,” Dasgupta said.
GST slabs would include exempted items list, one
standard rate for majority of the goods and services and
another having a moderate rate, he said.
Precious metals are likely to continue to attract 1%
tax. This has to be done to bring uniformity in tax
compliance for the business community and to facilitate
them to maintain a single book of accounts for both
state GST and Central GST tax payment, Mr Dasgupta said.
The implementation of GST is scheduled for April 1,
2010. However, there are doubts at various quarters
whether the new tax regime would come into effect at the
targetted date beacuse differences of opinion over the
rates among states and the items to be included under
GST.
The Empowered Committee of state finance ministers had
released a discussion paper on GST on November 10. It
proposes to replace central levies like excise duty,
service tax, special additional duty, countervailing
duty by GST.
State levies like VAT, sales tax, entry tax etc would
also be subsumed. Besides all this, central and state
cesses and surcharges would be out once GST comes into
effect.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had last month said
that “proposed GST would help achieve common market for
goods and services at lower tax rates, avoiding
cascading effect of these taxes”.
Dasgupta said once the Law Ministry cleared the draft
amendments required for the GST, it would be placed
before Parliament for approval.
The legislation would empower the state to levy taxes,
but care should be taken that it was uniform, he said.
Dasgupta had earlier said all forms like C form would be
done way from day one of GST roll out, but way bill
would continue for the first year to allow the IT
infrastructure for inter-state goods and services
transfer to be in place.
The states released a discussion paper prepared by the
Empowered Committee of their finance ministers last
month which said the GST should also replace cesses and
surcharges at both central and state levels.
The much-talked about discussion paper did not give any
idea about rates and the items to be included in it.
However, it made some specific suggestions such as
alcohol and petroleum tax should be out of GST, while
tobacco be included in it.
Some states like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana had
sought extension in the GST introduction.
